Given the availability of the Internet, businesses have taken to using “e-commerce” to perform the transactions needed for carrying on their affairs. “Web shops” are known that allow business employees to sign on and navigate through various transactions in support of the business. For example, a user may log on to a computer connected to the Internet, link to a web site that offers e-commerce, and place product orders from commercial manufacturers and distributors via the web site.
Commercial manufacturers and distributors (collectively, “vendors”) commonly accept product orders via electronic systems. Business enterprises can be complex, sprawling arrangements, comprising many entities that may be dispersed across countries and continents. E-commerce may be useful to such enterprises in particular, for example, by allowing certain of the entities to act on behalf of others of the entities when placing orders. However, when business enterprises having a complex structure use e-commerce, it can be important to have controls in place. In particular, entities should only be able to perform e-commerce on behalf of other entities when they are authorized to do so.
For large retail accounts, for example, clients may dictate to vendors discrete ways in which client personnel may place orders to the vendors. For example, the client may specify that certain of its employees have authority to order products but others do not. The client may specify that certain employee have authority to order products only for specified entities within the clients corporate landscape (e.g., for a single retail store in the organization or for stores within a discretely identified certain corporate district or region). If an employee places a product order that amounts to a violation of his authority, the client will not accept responsibility for the order.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an electronic retailing system that can identify which agents within a third-party client organization are entitled to place orders with the system and which are not. Further, there is a need for such a system that can identify, for which entities within a large, multi-entity organization, an agent is entitled to place orders.